Dead Eye

Review: With the Gray Man still on the run from US authorities — and a number of "handlers" he's burned — the CIA hires one of its most covert private operations, Townsend Government Services, to find and kill him. They turn to the one man who is just as skilled as Gray Man in order to complete the job for them, a man code-named Dead Eye, the fourth thriller in this series by Mark Greaney.

Court Gentry, also known as the Gray Man, has no idea why the CIA has a shoot-on-sight order out on him. He just knows he needs to keep moving and keep undercover. In order to finance his travels, he takes on select assignments to assassinate only those men and women who deserve it, according to his own, complicated moral code. When Townsend gets word that Gray Man has just killed a Russian mobster, they immediately send Russ Whitlock, Dead Eye, and a team of eight specialists to intercept him as he flees Russia. Dead Eye manages to find Gentry quickly enough, but instead of pulling the trigger himself, he helps the Gray Man escape the Townsend team sent to kill him. Gentry is grateful for Whitlock's assistance, but suspicious, too. And he should be, as Dead Eye has other plans for the Gray Man.

Dead Eye is an action-packed thriller, racing along at break-neck speed throughout northeast Europe. The premise of Whitlock's plans for Gentry is more than a little flimsy; after all, these are two loners — singletons in the CIA world — who prefer to work on their own and are suspicious of any unrequested assistance, no matter how well-intended it may be. But this relatively minor plot flaw is readily overlooked as one man chases the other from country to country, leaving a trail of bodies in both their wakes. The inclusion of a female Mossad agent in the hunt provides some additional, indeed welcome, uncertainty to the mix. All in all, a terrifically entertaining thriller, one that will have new readers to the series seeking out the first book to see how it all started.

Acknowledgment: Penguin Group provided a copy of Dead Eye for this review.